Afghanistan

US Continues Diplomatic Outreach to Host At-risk Afghans

The United States says it is engaging directly with the Taliban to secure safe passage for “everybody” who is trying to get to the Kabul airport. The U.S. is also reaching out to dozens of countries to host at-risk Afghans while accelerating the evacuation of American citizens, diplomats and Afghan …

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G7 Seeks Cooperation on Evacuation Amid Chaos in Kabul

Foreign affairs ministers from the U.K. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S. spoke about internal displacement in Afghanistan over recent days. The Group of Seven (G7) on Thursday sought to secure close cooperation in personnel evacuation and the resettlement of refugees as chaos continues at the Kabul airport …

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Putin Rejected Role for U.S. Forces Near Afghanistan at Summit With Biden

After Afghan withdrawal, U.S. military hopes to position forces temporarily near Afghanistan, but Putin told Biden that Moscow objects Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a June 16 summit meeting with President Biden, objected to any role for American forces in Central Asian countries, senior U.S. and Russian officials said, undercutting …

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Taliban Conquest of Afghanistan Scrambles the Diplomatic Map

U.S. efforts to isolate the Taliban could be undercut by new regime’s outreach to Russia, China and neighbors The ascent of the Taliban has redrawn the diplomatic map for the U.S. and its rivals as they compete to shape the future of Afghanistan. China and Russia already are moving to …

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Iran Treading Cautiously Amid The Taliban Takeover Of Afghanistan

Iranian officials are carefully weighing their options after the surprisingly swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan amid fears of instability, a refugee influx, and extremist groups such as Islamic State (IS) gaining a permanent foothold in its eastern neighbor. Tehran, which has cultivated loose ties with the Taliban in recent years …

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Former US Centcom chief: military alone ‘insufficient’ to achieve goals in Afghanistan

Joe Votel was only a few weeks into his new job as commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, the US Army’s elite special operations force, when Al Qaeda hijackers attacked New York. At his base in Fort Benning, in the southern state of Georgia, his secretary came into his office …

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Turmoil In Afghanistan Spills Into Central Asia

The events that the governments of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan have been increasingly dreading in recent weeks have begun to happen. The Afghan government has fallen to the Taliban and despite the Central Asian governments having had years to contemplate and plan for such an occurrence, the initial shock waves …

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Panjshir Commander Ahmad Massoud readies for war while negotiating with Taliban

The leader of Afghanistan’s only region not to have fallen to the Taliban has said he would be willing to join a Taliban government, but only if the group proved itself to be inclusive and respect the rights of all Afghans. Ahmad Massoud, 32, leads forces in the Panjshir valley …

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US-Afghanistan August 15, 2021: Eight Conclusions And The Mean Words ‘What Was It We Said All The Time?’ – OpEd

Back then, after September 11, 2001, in Washington and New York, everybody talked about who could have done it, how they did it and with what means. The only thing never brought to the fore was: WHY would somebody want to do something like 9/11 to the United States of …

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Our View: US-backed Afghan nation-building no more than a fantasy

Once the United States announced its decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, it was only a matter of time before the country would fall to the Taliban. But it took much less time than expected with the Taliban declaring victory on Sunday after the Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled …

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